I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chaise lounge having an integral misting system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a misting system mounted between the webbing of a chaise lounge. The misting system provides a fine spray over the body of the user.
II. Description of the Relevant Art
Perhaps more than anything else in our lives styles are susceptible to change. Specifically, styles with respect to clothing and appearance go through ebbs and tides according to time. For example, at one time, particularly in the last century, it was fashionable for proper ladies not to have any tanned color in their skins, as this coloring would suggest that the woman was exposed to the sun for a considerable amount of time and therefore must be a peasant or laborer. Accordingly, many people of both sexes went to great lengths to avoid the sun. Many persons powdered themselves so as to make their skin appear even more white than it was naturally.
If at that time white skin represented the upper gentry whose members had time only for relaxation and not for manual labor, then today the style pendulum with respect to tanned skin has swung in exactly the opposite direction. Many people seek to improve their tans by spending time out of doors at the beach, for example, and also going so far as to seek artificial ways to induce a tan. Such artificial measures include attending tanning salons or ingesting "tanning pills" which contain a residue to be absorbed into the fatty tissue of the user which, to the observer, appears to be a tan on the pill-user's skin.
Even after all of these artificial methods are undertaken, people still seek the more "natural" approach of acquiring a tan which is to expose themselves to the sun. This is often done at beaches and by swimming pools. This can also be done in the tan-seeker's backyard by resting upon either the ground or upon a lounge chair. Lying in the sun can be uncomfortable because the sun-seeker's skin does become awfully warm. Occasionally sunbathers will splash water upon themselves in an effort to cool their skin and also to increase the tanning effects of sunlight by taking advantage of the physical properties of water which act to magnify the radiant energy of the sun as it contacts the sunbather's skin. A preferred approach therefore is for the sunbather to have at his or her access a conveniently available source of spray or water. Some people prefer to expose themselves to water by lying out near a sprinkler system.
Other people have been more creative than simply setting up a sprinkler. Specifically, there have been in the past designs to attach misting systems to chaise lounges. Two particular such inventions are relevant to this point.
The first such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,542 issued to Carlson in 1988. Carlson discloses a manually controlled, self-contained liquid misting attachment. The system of Carlson includes a water reservoir and a pumping system for spraying water through apertures defined in a tube attached to a sunbather's chair. The system of Carlson is an after-market attachment for the chair.
Another effort at providing a misting system for a chair was made in U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,357 to Schmidt issued in 1985. Schmidt utilizes a conventional lawn chair which has attached thereto a flexible hose which is closed at one end. Again, the misting system of Schmidt is attachable as an after-market device to a conventional and existing chair.
However, both Carlson and Schmidt suffer from the disadvantages commonly associated with after-market attachments. For example, such attachments usually become inoperable because they fail due to their poor method of attachment. Such attachment systems usually also provide unwanted bulk to the system and very often inhibit efficient folding and unfolding of the chair, thus seriously compromising the convenience and utility of the foldable chaise lounge.
Thus none of the known methods at providing a misting system for a chaise lounge overcomes the inherent disadvantages of after-market attachments.